Free 1 State of Grace by John Phythyon Page B

his shot ran to where she fell and examined her. It was Meadowbrook, a relatively new member of the Guard.
    “She’s dead,” he reported. “Nice shooting, Captain.”
    “Scan the area,” she ordered. “Make sure there aren’t any more.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and moved off.
    May looked at the body of the terrorist and grieved. Elf-on-elf violence was so far from the Word of Frey it couldn’t be comprehended. But here they found themselves. A beautiful young girl shot dead by a soldier because the girl intended to mass murder more elves. It was no wonder the land was dying. Elves had lost their way, and May had no idea who was going to show them back to the path of their ancestors.

Chapter 6: Highly Irregular
    (Five Months before Revelation Day)
     
    Lieutenant Svetlana Markova entered Major Davidov’s office in Pushkingrad with a slight sense of trepidation. She did not like delivering bad news.
    She reflected that it wasn’t necessarily bad news. It might be nothing. Perhaps some clerk in the People’s Defense Bureau had made a mistake.
    Her instincts told her otherwise. What she discovered was highly irregular, and that just wasn’t the way things were done in either the PDB or the Phrygian Army. Everything was very orderly.
    She tried to show more than her usual confidence. She rolled her shoulders a little farther back to accentuate her large breasts, which stretched the fabric of her black, PDB uniform. Her back was straighter; her chin tipped a little high, causing her long, blonde hair to cascade fully down her back. She snapped a harsh salute at her superior, clicking her heels as she did so.
    “Major Davidov,” she said.
    “Ah, come in, Shadowcat,” he said, calling her by her service codename. “What can I do for you?”
    There was real affection for her in his voice, another reason she hated to deliver him bad news. They had developed a very good relationship in the past two years and even occasionally shared a drink at the officers’ club. She was certain he was interested in more than friendship, but she knew he would never act on his feelings. Fraternization with junior staff under one’s command was strictly forbidden.
    She thought he was foolish. In her opinion, when men and women are attracted to each other, their positions in the collective should not matter. After all, the state did not consider a person’s feelings when it made its assignments. Neither should it care about one’s feelings for others within one’s occupation.
    Davidov would never see it that way, though. Duty was his first mistress, and, if she told him not to take another, he would obey her. It was a shame. Svetlana wasn’t entirely certain if she was interested in becoming intimate with Boris Davidov, but she would have been willing to find out if he asked.
    “I have discovered something unusual,” she said.
    She could not look directly at him. She didn’t want to disappoint him. Her ice-blue eyes shifted around the drab office, with its grey floors, covered only with Davidov’s small desk and two chairs, and its grey walls, adorned only with a Phrygian flag and the seal of the People’s Defense Bureau.
    “Go on,” he said.
    “I was conducting a routine audit of a number of field agents,” she continued, “and I discovered that Captain Viktor Krilenko has been assigned directly to General Yevgeni Tupelov. Were you aware of this?”
    “No,” Davidov said.
    “I did not think so. There was no record of you giving authorization for this transfer, which you would have to have done since General Tupelov is Army, not PDB. I was hoping it was a clerical error, but it seems it is not.”
    Davidov stroked his graying goatee thoughtfully and ran his fingers through his thinning, blonde hair. His blue eyes focused on nothing.
    “I do not recall receiving any request from General Tupelov for one of our agents,” he said at last. “How long has Ravager been assigned to him?”
    “Almost a month,”